http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/39371#CurDomainURL#/blog.cfm The New York Times report in today’s edition about the missile test site explosions, “Explosion Seen as Big Setback to Iran’s Missile Program” underlines what we had written about Iran’s progress on silo-hardened solid fuel ICBMs, especially the 2,000 KM Shelj-2i and 3,500 KM MB-25 obtained from the North Koreans – see The Iranian […]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ML06Ak01.html
Israel’s immigration ministry stopped running television ads exhorting Israelis living in America to come home after American Jewish organizations complained, the New York Times reported December 2:
One video advertisement shows a Jewish elderly couple distraught that their Israeli granddaughter in the United States thinks Hanukkah is Christmas. Another shows a clueless American boyfriend who does not get why his Israeli expatriate girlfriend is saddened on Israel’s memorial day. A third shows a toddler calling “Daddy! Daddy!” to his napping Israeli expatriate father, who finally awakens when the child switches to Hebrew: “Abba!”
“While we recognize the motivations behind the ad campaign,” the Jewish Federations remonstrated in a December 1 statement, “we are strongly opposed to the messaging that American Jews do not understand Israel. We share the concerns many of you have expressed that this outrageous and insulting message could harm the Israel-Diaspora relationship.” The Jewish organizations complained after a liberal blogger, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Monthly, denounced the ads.
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/05/the-eus-big-kazoo
As Europe insists on still more socialism as a solution to its ill, the U.S. Fed is doing its best to help out — in deep secrecy, of course.
Europe has no time for clichés, so Europe’s currency crisis has skipped two cycles. Instead of allowing one cycle of history to complete itself before it is repeated — first as tragedy and then as farce — the Eurozone nations have decided to pass by the end of the current course, skip tragedy, and go directly to farce.
France’s President is pressing hard on the trigger to fire the EU’s “big bazooka” but he can’t fire because Germany’s PM has her finger stuck behind the trigger and isn’t budging. Meanwhile, Mr. Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s Foreign Minister, last week demanded German intervention to save Poland (and the euro). Sikorski said, “I demand of Germany that, for its sake and ours, it help the Eurozone survive and prosper. Nobody else can do it. I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to save this, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear its inactivity.”
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=955 Three slaps and you’re out? It has been a unique week in U.S.-Israeli relations. After first trying to kill a bipartisan Senate sanctions bill directed against Iran’s Central Bank, U.S. Administration officials decided to “work” with the two Senate leaders on the legislation – Bob Menendez and Mark Kirk – to “improve” the bill. […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Leon Panetta, fresh from a stint as CIA director and off to his new job as Secretary of Defense, did his best to butch up in the usual way of DC hacks “daringly” delivering the same utterances that have been current in the capital for generations. When Panetta, the man who looks like everyone’s […]
First Panetta, now Ambassador Gutman: When it Comes to US Policy towards Israel, Listen to what its Representatives Say, Not to the President’s Promises Posted By Ron Radosh URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2011/12/04/first-panetta-now-ambassador-gutman/ First it was Leon Panetta, and now it’s Howard Gutman. President Barack Obama, who just last week told Jewish groups that he […]
Obama’s Middle East Policy: A Unified Field Theory Posted By Barry Rubin
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/12/05/obamas-middle-east-policy-a-unified-field-theory/
Summary: Muslims good; Islamists moderate; No peace? Israel’s fault; ears closed. Have a nice day!
In the history of physics, the “unified field theory” was an attempt to bring together an understanding of all forms of energy in a single explanation. Albert Einstein tried and failed to discover this. I don’t know much about physics but I know about Middle East policy.
So here’s an effort to bring together all of Obama’s regional policy into a single analysis and explaining everything in 1100 words.
The first point is that the Obama Administration’s behavior must be divided into two phases. They overlap and feature the same kind of thinking but they are also quite separate.
Phase One, from January 2009 until December 2011 was characterized by an emphasis on Israel-Palestinian peacemaking. Obama’s Administration believed that it was possible to make rapid progress toward peace and also thought that this was essential to achieve anything else in the Middle East.
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-justice-dept-violated-us-laws/
As we continue to watch the general uproar over the Operation Fast and Furious program, and specifically what Attorney General Holder knew and when he knew it, it needs to be noted that perjury is not the only apparent violation of law to have occurred.
I refer to the apparent violation of at least one (probably two) major U.S. laws by the Holder Justice Department. A few years ago, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701, the follow-on to the Trading with the Enemy Act) was expanded in order to criminalize any transactions between U.S. entities — to include departments and agencies of the U.S. government — and all foreign drug cartels.
I am familiar with these prohibitive statues because several years ago, while serving as the senior drug analyst for the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was tasked to initiate and became the principal drafter of legislation which became known as the Kingpin Act (21 U.S.C. §§ 1901-08). The Kingpin Act is an extension of the highly successful IEEPA sanctioning program specifically targeting Colombian drug cartels. It expands sanctions authority against various drug cartel operations worldwide — including Mexico — which have been determined by the president to be threats to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.
A violation of any of the IEEPA sanctioning programs or the Kingpin Act carries stiff penalties, both criminal and civil, and potentially totaling decades in prison and tens of millions of dollars in fines. It is not necessary that an individual or governmental entity be shown to have “knowingly” violated any of these programs: it is illegal for any U.S. entity or individual to aid, abet, or materially assist — or in the case of Operation Fast and Furious, to facilitate others to aid, abet, or materially assist — designated drug traffickers. There are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.
Based on the July 5, 2010, memo to Eric Holder, it would appear that Fast and Furious facilitated the delivery of weapons to — at a minimum — the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. The U.S. Department of the Treasury, which administers both the IEEPA and Kingpin Act programs, has designated numerous members of the Sinaloa cartel under both programs. IEEPA prohibitions apply to the U.S. government as well as to individuals, and as stated there are no exceptions within IEEPA programs for unlicensed U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agency operations.
There is a provision in the Kingpin Act for “authorized” law enforcement and intelligence activities, however the only procedure by which an Operation Fast and Furious program could have been “authorized” under the Kingpin Act was by the U.S. attorney general requesting a waiver (known within the Treasury Department as a Specific License), prior to any such operation being undertaken. To illustrate and emphasize this point: even during the run-up to war in Iraq, the U.S. secretary of Defense had to obtain waivers (specific licenses) from the Treasury Department to allow U.S. Special Forces and their necessary equipment (to include weapons, intelligence gathering, and targeting gear) to go into Iraq, as Iraq at the time was under separate IEEPA sanctions.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2639/muslim-brotherhood-ideology-in-egypt
PMW translation of “Jihad Is the Way” by former leader of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
Central messages:
1. Muslims are “masters of the world”
2. Islamic nation’s “rightful position… the teachers of humanity”
3. “There is no other option but Jihad for Allah
4. Fighting Israel is “Jihad against the criminal, thieving gangs of Zion”
5. Has the [Muslim] Brotherhood grown weary of the challenges, thrown down their guns and abandoned Jihad?!! No!”
The Muslim Brotherhood took first place in Egypt’s first round of elections last week with 40% of the vote and the Salafist Islamists received 20%. In order to understand the implications, Palestinian Media Watch is redistributing our translation of the book Jihad Is the Way, written by Mustafa Mashhur, who was the official leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt 1996-2002. The book is the fifth volume of his work called The Laws of Da’wa (Islamic missionary activity).
In the book Jihad Is the Way the fundamental concepts of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology are explained, including, the Muslim Brotherhood’s goal of establishing an Islamic state, world domination under Islam, the public and personal religious duty of military Jihad, and the necessity of timing the ultimate Jihad properly. The book warns Muslims not to rush to Jihad until Jihad is prepared and timed fully for maximum benefit. The current period is seen by the Muslim Brotherhood as one of obligatory preparation for that coming Jihad. Click to view full translation in PDF
PMW has selected the following quotes from Jihad is the way to illustrate central ideas of Muslim Brotherhood ideology. PMW’s translation of the book follows below.
Muslim Brotherhood goal: Islamic world domination
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2640/britain-muslim-honor-crimes
More than 2,800 so-called honor attacks — punishments for bringing shame on the family — were recorded by British police last year, according to the first-ever national estimate of the problem.
The highest number of honor crimes — which include murder, mutilation, beatings, abductions and acid attacks — was recorded in London, where the problem has doubled to more than five times the national average.
Still, although the statistics provide the best national estimate so far, they do not give the full picture of the levels of honor violence in Britain. The real figure could be five times as high and in any case shows that Muslim parallel societies are now firmly established in Britain, thanks to decades-long multicultural immigration policies in the country.
The data on honor violence in Britain was released on December 3 by the London-based Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization (IKWRO), a registered charity that provides advice to Muslim women and girls living in the United Kingdom, who are facing forced marriage, honor-based violence, female genital mutilation and domestic abuse.
